e us in time for the first, and it seems
as if our heads had hardly touched the pillows when we hear his voice at
the door, "Stromboli in sight, sir!" It is cold and we are very sleepy;
grumbling, we make our way to the front of the deck below the bridge,
and suddenly, in the blackness ahead, there shoots up a short straight
column of fire like that from the chimney of a blast furnace. It
disappears as quickly and quietly as it came, and odd bits of flame,
like red-hot cinders, roll this way and that, then all is black again.
As the sky quickly lightens we see outlined against it a cone or
pyramid, and from the summit there shoots out another column of flame,
to disappear almost instantly.

"Stromboli sky-rocketing," says the voice of one of the officers on the
bridge above.

All the time we are gliding nearer and nearer to the wonderful mountain,
when, with an amazing swiftness, up flashes the sun, sweeping rays of
colour over the sky, changing it from pale primrose to fiery orange, and
there, black against it, is a little island so neatly made that it
appears an exact triangle with a bite out of one side near the top.
Stromboli is one of a group of little islands. What had appeared as
flame in the darkness shows at the next eruption to be a puff of smoke
from which burning lumps fall on the rocky sides and down the
precipices. This happens about every quarter of an hour. The sea
meantime changes to vivid blue. We are quite close now and can see tiny
white houses nestling on the edge of the island amid clusters of green.
What happens to the people if the boiling lava rolls down through their
vineyards and into their houses? There is no one to answer that
question. Perhaps it never gets so far, perhaps Stromboli has not yet
shown himself to be a fierce volcano, but limits his eruptions to angry
splutterings which beat on the scarred precipices of the steep sides
above the dwellings of the people,--anyway, I don't think I should care
to live there, just in case----

We awake suddenly from our intent gazing to find ourselves the
laughing-stock of a crowd of decently dressed men and women who have
come up in the daylight, properly clad, and there are we in
dressing-gowns, not over-long, and slippered feet! But no one minds
these little mishaps on board ship, and with dignity we pass through to
our cabin, smiling and feeling very superior to have seen so much more
than the lie-abeds!

As it happens, it is Sunday mornin